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Monday, February 18, 2013

{flashback} on anxiety

I feel these past few weeks I am surrounded by anxiety (not me; though through listening I have felt it touch a raw nerve long forgotten.) I know I'm not the be all and know all of all things Anxiety. However I feel if I can share little snippets that have worked for me to manage it then maybe I'm helping just a little. One thing that keeps coming back to me is Writing it down. Writing about it. Writing it out. Even if you aren't a 'writer' per say, something so little as jotting down notes may go a long way to clear the mind.

It made me realise that I am not really practicing what I'm preaching.

I pulled out my long lost (handwritten) journal; blew off the fine layer of dust and spent some time getting acquainted with it again. Writing new entries as well re-reading past entries. This particular entry was written exactly a year ago. When the anxiety held me in its firm grip. Looking back upon it while my gut churns and I feel I cant take anymore… I see how far I've come in one short year.

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Hearing the trees, rustled by hopefully cooling winds, the steady ticking of our alarm clock. The whirring of the air conditioner cooling everything down. I lie here. Its late - twenty past ten - my eyes sting with the very thought of sleep, my body tired, it aches and craves sleep. It is guilty, knowing its let the team down once more. Its refusing to play the game and other parts are going out in sympathy.

It is flailing. Exhaustion creeps in as it can no longer keep up this fight.

I sit here. Angry with my body. Tired. Wanting to give in - to sleep - to pain - to exhaustion.

Yet its now 10: 30. I'm writing, first time in a long time and its round about, up and down. No sense. Yet I need this.

All day my body has been letting me down. Tightenings in my chest. At first a little here and there. A near meltdown at swimming. Held together by a thread. A thread so taut, a single flick would snap it in two. Tears prickled. I held on.

Steadily its gotten worse. At night its been my constant friend. Tightening to the point it felt my breathing was constricted.

End'o the road & beyond

Mum. Wife. Writer. Dreamer.

My place in the world to scribble my past, write my present and draw my future - along the way, sharing the road I am travelling to find ME. Behind me, the road was rocky and filled with bends and potholes. Ahead there are steep hills to climb and forks to explore. It may not be paved in yellow brick, but it is a path to the end'o the road & beyond... Destination as yet unknown.